The Mental Body: The mental body contains the structure and patterns of all the thoughts and belief systems that we consider as true. And there is a very strong connection between the mental and emotional bodies. Although a thought or idea can in itself be very powerful, our reactions to those thoughts carry even more energy, and different people will react differently to the same thought.

The mental body usually appears as yellow light radiating around the entire body from head to toe, and extends from three to eight inches beyond the physical body. Within this area, individual thought forms appear as small blobs of light of varying form and intensity.

From 3-8 inches from the body exists the Mental, or third layer of the aura. Containing your ideas, mental processes, and thoughts, this layer is typically associated with hues of yellow light that radiates around the shoulders and head, slightly extending into lower regions of the body to communicate with other levels.

The Mental Energy Body – It is in the mental layer where our ideas spring from. Our belief systems are also stored here. This is where our thoughts are assimilated and sorted out. In this layer our personal truths, or rather, our perceptions based on our experiences are housed.

The mental body or the mind is the seat of our feelings, emotions and desires. It carries in it countless number of impressions from this life and previous lives. It is made up of three parts:

The composition of the mental body is even more suble then the emotional body, the mental body holds our thoughts and mental processes. It extends three to eight inches out from the physical body, and usually has a yellow glow, which radiates around the head and shoulder area, and expands down to the body below. This yellow will brighten if a person is deep in thought, in contemplation or concentrating on mental activities. Although the color reflecting this body is yellow, other colors are present if there is an emotion that came from a thought coming from the emotional body.Sometimes we also refer to an aspect of the mental body as the desires body or vāsanādeha. This is the aspect of the mind that contains all the impressions of desires.

The conscious mind: It is that part of our thoughts and feelings that we are aware of.

The sub-conscious mind: It contains all the impressions required to complete our destiny in our current lifetime. Thoughts from the sub-conscious mind sometimes emerge into the conscious mind from time to time either in response to some external stimulus or at time even without it. For example during the course of one’s day one gets a random and unrelated thought about some vague incident in one’s childhood.

The unconscious mind: This is the aspect of our mind that we are completely unaware of. This contains all the impressions that are associated with our accumulated account.

The sub-conscious mind and unconscious mind together are known as the Chitta.

The Lower Mental Body

The lower mental body receives, stores and transmits all our thought patterns and mental processes. It is linked to the solar plexus chakra. Thoughts extend beyond the mental body as energy and create our realities so it is important to choose the thoughts that we allow to dwell in our minds. When we link thought with the power of emotions we become creators so it is important to monitor that which we are choosing whether consciously or unconsciously.

The Higher Mental Body

The higher mental body is the layer of energy linked to the heart chakra and is therefore the bridge from the physical to the spiritual realms. When we maintain an open heart chakra we receive light, information and inspiration from our soul through the higher mental body. This layer of energy acts as a filter for past life information and karmic patterns to come into consciousness.

The mental layer is a more structured layer, extending three to eight inches from the physical body. This layer is usually first seen as a bright, yellow light radiating around the head, neck and shoulders of the person, but extending around the whole body. The light will appear stronger and pulsating when the person is concentrating on mental tasks. Depending upon the thought, colored sparks may emanate from this layer. This is the layer associated with thoughts and mental processes.

The Mental Body is our vehicle of expression for intellect, ideas and thoughts. It can have healthy or unhealthy activity and thoughts. The mental body can be undercharged or overcharged; we can describe someone as a bright student, which reflects the appearance of a healthy mental body and the third layer of their energy field would be pulsating bright yellow energy.
Thoughts can become holding patterns on this level. Healers can actually tune in and hear some of these thought forms in someone’s energy field.
A healthy mental body would have clarity and a clear thought process. If it was unhealthy it would be squashing the emotional level, this is very common with our education system. We become thinkers and not used to feeling. Or the emotional level could overwhelm the mental level, so we would have lots of emotional process with little clarity.
This is the level where we hold our thought forms. Thinking does not only happen in the brain, each cell in our body is conditioned by the thoughts we have. This web of mental energy affects our emotional and physical well-being.
The Mental Body facilitates cognition, the faculty of knowing. It gives you the ability to discern, and to have thoughts, beliefs, concepts, and higher psychic abilities.

Mental consciousness ranges from discernment of the very specific, detailed, particular to the discernment of the very general, inclusive, abstract. Separative, distinguishing thought to unitive, embracing thought.

The Mental Body has its own range of feeling. When there is excessive focus within the limiting, separated range of thought then there is judgment, mental fear, and depression. When thought expands into the more unitive ranges then there is compassionate-understanding, peace, joy, awe, and bliss.

The Manasic Universe (which includes the Mental/Intellectual Body, Causal/Soul Body, and the Manasic Body) is overall a place of profound rarefied celestial beauty. It is filled with light – primarily white, blue and gold, although the full range of pastel colors are common. The Manasic Universe, similar to the Astral Universe, contains a mental replica of the higher universes. It is filled with knowledge about everything.

Mental consciousness is more objective, factual, and impersonal than astral consciousness. However, individual personality and character reach their pinnacle of development in mental consciousness.

The Mental Body has a figure like form in the shape of the Physical Body. It also has an aura that is ovoid shaped with pointed ends. The aura extends about 4 to 10 feet from the Physical Body. Usual colors are light blue, yellow, gray, silver, white, and gold, however all pastel colors can be present. It has 7 major energy centers, 21 minor energy centers, and many smaller centers, just like the etheric and astral bodies. Radiations of light extend from the heart area.

Chitta is an envelope of subtle energies which surrounds the head and permeates the brain. The astral body is the emotional body; the chitta is the mental body. They are both intimately linked and operate together.

Ching is sexual energy and is a synthesis of the chi produced in the various glands and organs throughout the body (the etheric/chi body). Chitta is similar to ching as it is a synthesis of the various astral forces which make up the astral body. It is also a synthesis of the chi energies and ching. The brain is fed by the chi from the various organs and glands as well as ching (sexual energy). A very subtle envelope of chi is created through this process which is able to interact with the physical brain as well as the astral forces. The astral body interacts with this envelope of refined chi and as a baby grows up the structure of Astral Substance in this area grows more and more complex. When the baby is young the chitta is basically this refined chi and has not been filled with Astral Substance. At this time the higher light of the baby is reflected through the chitta and so the consciousness is very clear. The Astral Substances have not yet crystallized in the chitta so the light shines through.

As the baby grows up and the astral forces are impacting into the etheric body they are also impacting into the chitta (incarnating). As the chitta is such a refined and subtle form of chi the astral forces can interact with it better than the rest of the etheric body. Thought processes become more complex as more Astral Substance becomes a part of it. The Astral Substances begin to mix with the chi layer of the chitta, creating a synthesis of chi and astrality. Each belief or piece of knowledge the baby gathers is formed in the chitta as astral crystallizations. The more complex the structure formed by these crystallizations, the more complex the thought processes become. So eventually the chitta becomes a very subtle and refined but very complex structure of astral and chi energies. The more complex the structure the more it will block the light of the Higher Self just like the crystallized astral body. If the belief patterns formed are true and in line with the truth of the Higher Self the structure will not be as solid and so the light will not be blocked as much. False beliefs however, whether they are about yourself, others or the World around you need to be more solid. Because your higher light is sending the truth to you at all times, a false belief will require a more solid crystallization in the chitta. If the chitta is full of false beliefs it will block the higher light more.

The structure in the chitta is just like that of the astral body and can also be seen as being made up of Samskaras. The difference is that the Samskaras in the astral body are caused by intense emotions and tend to be much larger. As the chitta is such a refined substance, Samskaras can be created very easily and are much smaller. Large emotional Samskaras are also created in the chitta and these ones will again form a foundation of personality just like the astral bodies Samskaras. The two bodies interact with each other and any large Samskara in the astral body will be accompanied by a group of smaller ones in the chitta.

The repression of the intense emotions in the astral body is helped along by the chitta and its increased structure. This structure can be very complicated and its purpose is to keep emotional pain under the surface.

The increased structure in the chitta and its repression of emotions in the astral body lead to a state of being stuck in your head. The thoughts will not stop and you have no control of them.

The chitta depends on ching for its health and optimum functioning. There is an intimate link between sexual energy and the chitta. When puberty is reached we begin to lose sexual energy and so the chitta loses a large part of its nutrition. When girls begin menstruation and boys begin to ejaculate, a large amount of ching is lost. If this loss did not occur there would be far more energy for the chitta and it would be much healthier. When sexual energy is lost, the chitta will actually give some of its energy to the making of new ching which is used in the production of sperm and eggs. If this is then lost through further ejaculation or menstruation, the chitta will again give energy. If this loss of sexual energy is stopped through the proper tantric techniques, the chitta will instead be fed by the ching and will not have to give itself to produce more sexual energy. The cycle of loss is turned into enormous amounts of energy for the chitta which in turn will make the brain far healthier. The consequences of this interaction should not be overlooked, especially if you are on a spiritual path.